ERCI's President, Kelly Bush brings 32 years of relevant archaeological experience in British Columbia, California, and Washington to this team. Ms. Bush designs field and lab work for all sizes of projects, and serves as Principal Investigator, facilitating all aspects of archaeological investigations including initial site visits, project design, tribal consultation, evaluation of properties, management recommendations, and reporting. She is responsible for quality control and internal training. Ms. Bush has successfully provided coordination for Traditional Cultural Properties studies, written numerous Historic Properties Management Plans, and provided cultural resource management training to local and tribal governments. Ms. Bush earned her BA in Archaeology from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. She has taught archaeology in both classroom and field school settings at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where she earned her MA in Anthropology. Her first love in archaeology was lithic identification and analysis and she loves getting a chance to work on collections but recognizes that the best day at work is when we can avoid a site and the disturbance to the resource. She is a past president of the Association for Washington Archaeology and stay involved with the Mentorship and Membership Committees.

Rob Gargett earned a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from Simon Fraser University and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in zooarchaeology and taphonomy. In a career that spans more than 30 years he has taken part in prehistoric archaeological survey and excavation in coastal and southern central British Columbia, California's Northern Coast Ranges, the Sierra Nevada Foothills and the Great Basin, the Czech Republic (Middle Paleolithic), France (Mesolithic), and Israel (Middle Paleolithic). Alongside a book and numerous referred journal articles on vertebrate taphonomy and site formation processes in Europe and Western Asia, Polynesia, and eastern Australia, in his CRM role Rob has authored, contributed to, and edited more than 100 cultural resource management reports on the precontact archaeology of California and British Columbia, and Washington State's Island, King, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties. Rob is a past editor of Australian Archaeology, was a project archaeologist and laboratory director for Pacific Legacy Inc., Santa Cruz, California, and technical writer for the archaeology group at AMEC Foster Wheeler, Burnaby, British Columbia. Dr. Gargett has generalist knowledge of comparative North American terrestrial vertebrate osteology, expert knowledge of zooarchaeological method and theory, and specialist knowledge of Late Pleistocene Central European ursid osteology and Middle to Late Pleistocene microtine fauna of Western North America. Dr. Gargett joined ERCI in 2014 and edits reports before they are sent to clients and published.

Alyson Rollins has been a professional biological anthropologist since 1999, with field and laboratory experience related to human osteology. She earned her BA in Human Biology from Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, ID, and her MA in Anthropology from Western Washington University. She has particular expertise in the identification of fragmented or partial human skeletal remains in an archaeological context. Ms. Rollins has been teaching Anthropology at Whatcom Community College since 1999 and at Western Washington University since 2005. She also has extensive experience consulting with Native American Tribes, Museums and Universities regarding NAGPRA issues and the repatriation of human remains and artifacts.

Leah received her MA in Maritime Archaeology from Syddansk Universitet in Denmark in 2019; her thesis compared Northwest Coast canoes to Danish logboats. She completed her underwater field school in Denmark in 2018, helping to document a 15th century shipwreck. She received her BA with honors from Cal State Northridge in 2015. She has done fieldwork on several projects in Northern Europe as well as in Washington State. Leah joined ERCI in 2021 and is a field crew supervisor, construction monitor, report writer, and loves being a part of the team. Outside of ERCI, she has taken on the job of Editor for the AWA Newsletter and is happy to be part of an organization that is such a great resource for archaeologists working in Washington. Additionally, Leah has five years of editing and publication design experience from her work for Rational Island Publishers, the Northwest Danish Association, and as a freelance editor. Her research interests include archaeogaming, the use of virtual reality to enhance and preserve heritage, and underwater prehistoric studies. She is planning graduate school in the near future.

Maddy graduated from Western Washington University in 2014, majoring in Anthropology with an Archaeology concentration and minoring in Geography. After working in Virginia for a year doing public archaeology at James Madison’s Montpelier, she returned to Washington state and completed an Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree in Geomatic Technology at Bellingham Technical College. She spent six years working as a land surveyor in Seattle, during which time she pursued an MA in Archaeological Heritage from University of Washington, graduating in December 2022. While attending UW, Maddy interned at a local CRM company, with whom she ran a project and wrote the associated report as part of her thesis project. Although she has spent time studying in Scotland and participating in fieldwork in Bulgaria, Virginia, and California, her primary archaeological interests are centered around the contact and historic periods in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2024 Rachel completed her MA in Art History with an Egyptian Art and Archaeology concentration at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. She also has a BA in Anthropology with an Archaeology Concentration and a Spanish minor from Western Washington University (2020). At ERCI since 2020, Rachel analyzes fauna, including shells, assists with field labs and field survey, and works on construction monitoring, report components and logistics. Outside of work, she runs the Association of Washington Archaeology Instagram page. She also volunteers for FindAGrave, where people send her requests for photos of grave sites.

Isabella ‘Bella’ Pipp was born and raised in Wisconsin, on the traditional homelands of many including the Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Menominee, Dakota, and Ojibwe peoples—often enjoying the abundancy of fresh water throughout the state including Lac La Belle and Minocqua Lake. After receiving her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Bella entered the Western Washington University Anthropology Graduate School with a hope of continuing interest and research into collaborative efforts with Tribal nations in archaeology. Her thesis “Excavating Archaeological Knowledge: An Archaeological Ethnography of Indigenizing Practices Within a Collaborative Field School Landscape” (2024) investigated the community-based participatory field school program undertaken in partnership between the Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians and Western Washington University–the Stillaguamish-WWU Collaborative Archaeological Field School. Bella has also expanded her research interests into transboundary issues, including partnering with her thesis chair Dr. Natalie Baloy in “Mega-Projects, Cumulative Impacts, & Indigenous Nationhood on the Multinational Salish Sea” (2024), which addresses Roberts Bank Terminal 2 and similar industrial expansion projects in relation to settler colonialism, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental assessment regulatory systems. Bella joined ERCI in April 2024 and is excited to braid her previous experience within her present and future archaeological work.

Abbey received double-major BA degrees in Historic Preservation and Studio Art from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA (2020), and has just completed an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA (2023). She has done preservation of many kinds, including field work, documentation, statements of significance, evaluations, building descriptions, research, oral history collecting and teaching, writing, and much more. Abbey is particularly interested in using her background in art as a means of conveying the importance of historic preservation to a younger audience, and has already made a number of digital art pieces that serve this purpose. She also has interests in world mythologies, the classics, animals, and paleohistory.

Kylee graduated from Western Washington University with her BA in Anthropology with an Archaeology concentration and a minor in History. She returned to Western Washington University for graduate school with a particular interest in developing the interdisciplinary discourse between Anthropology and History. Her MA thesis assessed the intersection of race, gender, and performance at the Pendleton Round-up. Since starting at ERCI in June 2022, she has furthered her skills in writing local histories and archival research and continues to gain experience with architectural history and preparing historic property inventories. Her research interests include Indigenous epistemologies and histories, in addition to public, local, and urban histories. Outside of work Kylee serves as Chair Pro Tem on the Historic Preservation and Landmarks Commission for the Town of Concrete, Washington. She plans to publish additional historical research in the future.

Aleta Baxley received a BA in Anthropology with an archaeology concentration and minors in Geology and Biology from Western Washington University in 2020. While at Western, Aleta worked as a Research Assistant on an NSF grant project studying the link between age at death of several seal species over time to climate change in the Aluetian Islands of Alaska. Attending field school in Ireland, she completed excavation, post excavation, and bioarchaeological work. Aleta worked as a temporary Archaeological Technician for Willamette CRA out of Seattle. At ERCI since 2021, Aleta works as a field crew supervisor, construction monitor and works in document control and report writing. She has done fieldwork across western Washington and in Ellensburg, Spokane, and Yakima. Current research interests include faunal analyses, land use practices, and geoarchaeology. She plans on attending graduate school in the near future.

Grace graduated from Western Washington University in 2022 with a degree in Anthropology with a concentration in archaeology and a minor in GIS. During this time, Grace was able to participate in WWU’s archaeological fieldwork course, working directly with the Stillaguamish Tribe in Arlington, Washington. Through this course she was able to learn CRM field techniques and report writing. Grace started with ERCI in February 2024 and has an interest in culturally modified trees, a topic she researched and presented in her paper, “Culturally Modified Trees in the Northwest Coast Region of the United States, 3,000 Years B.P through the Contact Period”. She plans on returning to school in 2024 to complete a certificate in GIS and intends to continue her education by pursuing an MA in archaeology and GIS analyses.

Isabella received her BA in Anthropology with an Archaeology concentration and a minor in Geology from Western Washington University in 2023. She attended the collaborative field school with the Stillaguamish Tribe and Western Washington University in Arlington, Washington and later interned for the Stillaguamish Tribe’s Cultural Resources department. Isabella joined ERCI in 2024 and assists with surface and subsurface survey as well as monitoring. Her areas of interest include zooarchaeology, ethnobotany, GIS, and art. She intends to pursue an MA in the future.

Emma received her BA in Anthropology with an archaeology concentration and a GIS Certificate from Western Washington University (WWU) in 2019. She worked as a Lab Technician for the Lummi Nation and for the WWU Anthropology Department Archaeology Lab. Her work for the Lummi Nation included analysis of faunal remains, and for WWU included assisting in drafting NAGPRA compliance documents. Since 2019 Emma has worked for Cultural Resource Management (CRM) companies in western Washington and for the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico and Washington where she carried out data recovery excavations, faunal bone species identification, construction monitoring, and cultural resource surveys—pedestrian and subsurface. Emma joined ERCI in 2021 and incorporates her previous experiences in her work while gaining momentum in all components of CRM. Outside of work, she volunteers on the Association for Washington Archaeology’s Mentorship Program committee and is a mentee in the program herself, eager to keep learning about heritage conservation and to explore new ways of thinking. This fall she will attend Portland State University in pursuit of a MS focused on GIS applications in Pacific Northwest archaeology.

Fiona Koehnen graduated from the University of Washington in 2020 with a BA in Anthropology and an emphasis in Archaeology and Native American Studies. During her studies she took a year of Southern Lushootseed language classes and worked at the Burke Museum archaeology department. At the Burke she worked on cataloguing, sorting, and classifying objects. Fiona was a rotary exchange student in Germany for a year, is fluent in German, and enjoyed returning to Mallorca for her first field study where she worked on identifying ceramic sherds, surveying fields, and excavating historic sites. During her second field school, Fiona worked with the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde in Oregon, creating an educational camp for children, learning about their sites, and surveying and setting up excavation units using ground penetrating radar. Fiona joined ERCI in 2021 and does subsurface survey, monitoring, shell identification, site delineation, backcountry survey, and leads field crews.

Rhododendron received a BA from Western Washington University in 2020 with majors in Chinese Language and Culture, East Asian Studies, and Anthropology with a concentration in archaeology. In Spring 2021 she received a certification in GIS from the Huxley College of the Environment. She has been working at ERCI since October 2021 and has taken the lead in GIS analysis and cartography, creating maps for reports. She is also working on sensitivity modeling using GIS to reduce the risk to projects and cultural resources. Rhododendron intends to continue her education by pursuing a Masters in archaeology and GIS applications and hopes to take her skills back to the classroom to one day teach future archaeologists.

Ashley received a BA in Anthropology with a biocultural concentration from Western Washington University in 2021 and has been working at ERCI since that time. As a student, Ashley researched epigenetic variation within human populations and wrote several papers, including "Examination of Health and Disease in Epigenetics: How Starvation Affects Our Health." At ERCI Ashley works as an Archaeologist and has experience monitoring, writing reports, and conducting cultural resource surveys. She plans to attend graduate school in the future. Her areas of interest include osteology, epigenetics, archaeology, and paleoanthropology.